NIGHT CRICKETS (Feat. Members of Bauhaus, Violent Femmes) Releases “A Free Society” on Vinyl

“… grooves like an interdimensional Little Village if it was formed in the basement of The Pyramid Club. In other words, it’s fantastic.” – Rock and Roll Globe

“… a glorious masterwork that incorporates the past, the present, and the imagined future.” – The Big Takeover

“groovy, jazzy and danceable, playful and sinister.” – Brooklyn Vegan

NIGHT CRICKETS
(feat. David J of Bauhaus, Victor DeLorenzo of Violent Femmes, and Darwin Meiners)
Release Critically-Acclaimed Debut A FREE SOCIETY
on Vinyl on July 29th

New Video “The Unreliable Narrator” Out Now

JULY 25, 2022 (New York, NY) – “There’s a lot of analogue warmth to this album which will only be emphasized all the more on vinyl” says David J of Omnivore recording artists NIGHT CRICKETS about the imminent vinyl release of their debut album A FREE SOCIETY on July 29, 2022.  A member of iconic post-punk bands Bauhaus and Love & Rockets, David J embraces the format, especially when it comes to this release. “Vinyl was the format that I initially listened to music on when I was a kid and when it first became so important to me. So there is a degree of nostalgia there but what transcends that is the enveloping warm, rich quality of the sound.” 

Together with bandmates Victor DeLorenzo (Violent Femmes) and multi-instrumentalist/artist Darwin Meiners, Night Crickets are excited for the format. “A vinyl record is where it all started for me,” reinforces Victor. “The pressing of our album gives the listener a rich, round and full-bodied sound with wonderful detail along the spectrum!  It swings and sings.”

The LP edition will also have different artwork unique to the edition. “The vinyl art utilizes a painting by our friend, the very brilliant Mark Gleason,” explains David. “It features a flaming billboard which is such a loaded and arresting image. To me, it is suggestive of the idea of a free society being one that lives outside of the dictates of commercial manipulation and rampant consumerism. We discovered this image after the artwork for the CD was done but then agreed that it would work to use two different covers to distinguish the different formats.”

The current single “The Unreliable Narrator” which Backseat Mafia calls “dark and motorik and, maybe surprisingly, beautiful,” is a moody, psychedelic track, showcasing David’s unmistakable bass playing and mixing in Eastern and post-punk elements. It features a lead vocal by David (who came up with the mordant lyrics) and the narration of British actor Marc Warren (Band of Brothers, The Vice, Mad Dogs), who is a personal friend of David’s. “When I was working the track, Marc happened to text me about something quite unrelated,” says David. “I had the spontaneous idea of asking him to record himself saying the title of the song as I could imagine his rather compelling voice on the track. (I did not tell him what my request was for.) He immediately recorded three takes on his phone which were then flown in right away. It worked!”

The accompanying video incorporates the kaleidoscopic psychedelia, and eagle-eyed viewers may draw parallels between the drumstick-antenna’ed Night Crickets and the unmistakable and memorable Bubblemen – Love & Rockets’ alter egos. “That idea to use drumsticks as antenna simply popped into my head following a meditation session,” laughs David. “When allied with the sound of (night) crickets that image makes for a pleasingly whimsical visual addendum to the video.”  Adds Victor, “I’ve never had the notion that someday my head would be encased in a glass bowl of smoke, but that’s show business. As a photographer, I love working with the different shades of light and shadow.”

Serving as the glue to bring the trio together, Darwin is admittedly a fan of both David and Victor’s other bands. A chance meeting in 2009 drew him and David together, and he eventually took on the role of David’s manager. He then reached out to Victor via email and met the Violent Femmes drummer at Coachella 2013.  Both contributed to Darwin’s 2014 release Souvenir.  With the onset of the pandemic, Darwin, David and Victor collaborated remotely on what would become A Free Society.

Hailed by critics upon its release in January, A Free Society combines the artful musicianship of each of the band members, creating a moody alt-rock stew of post-punk art-rock that oozes woozy psychedelia. Goldmine Magazine latches onto the album’s amorphous quality, calling it “an adventure in time travel, even as it lives in pandemic darkness and uncertainty… Somebody, please be sure to call David Lynch. He needs to hear this.”  Pop Culture Beat  highlights the band’s musicianship, saying “The music is as skillful as one could desire, featuring the three multi-instrumentalists in the band, with DeLorenzo providing drums and percussion throughout. There’s occasional synth work, all of it as tasty as you might expect from these musical masters,” while Americana Highways highlights the band’s unique sound, praising “Something considerably different yet surprisingly vibrant comes in a package by former tenebrous stripe musicians.”

“We all enjoy each other and the process of making music together so much,” Darwin says of the collaboration.  “Each one of us would be charged with writing one third with the idea that the others could/would add to it.  David suggested that we draw the order from a hat and that we each not listen to what the other’s had done before recording our parts.  The experiment was successful in that you get to hear Night Crickets as a group but also each member’s vibe in a personal way.”

A Free Society
Tracklisting
1. Black Leather On The Inside
2. Candlestick Park
3. Amanda’s Mantra
4. A Free Society
5. Roman À Clef
6. Soul Wave
7. Little Did I
8. Sloe Song
9. The Unreliable Narrator
10. Down Below
11. Return To The Garden Of Allah
12. Sacred Monster
13. I Want My Night Crickets!

With A Free Society enjoying a rebirth on vinyl, Night Crickets are already looking forward to what the future might hold. “There has been such a flow to this project and once we had the album in the can, we just carried on recording,” says David. “The new music that is evolving has more of a darkly psychedelic quality. In fact it is VERY dark and VERY psychedelic. We’ve been scaring ourselves!” Concludes Victor, “New Music is already swimming to the surface and we hope to debut in some live chirping form next year.”

Night Crickets is David J, Victor DeLorenzo, and Darwin Meiners. A Free Society is available digitally and on CD via Omnivore Records and will be released on vinyl on July 29, 2022.

THE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR
The unreliable narrator
Gets his intel second hand
From disreputable sources
Not au fait with the lay of the land

He listens to Chinese whispers
From sisters of the church
Of conspiracy and hearsay
Where little birds do perch

He’s blinded not by science
But by alternative facts
He looks for clues to solve the case
And falls down all the cracks

The unreliable narrator
He has an axe to grind
And a cache of theories
The conspiratorial kind

The rabbit hole it is so deep
And yet so shallow too
You can’t believe a word he says
So you’re foolish if you do

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